


[Roads, Diverged]

by acommontater



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25760002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acommontater/pseuds/acommontater
Summary: She often wonders on their adventure how differently things might have turned out if the power had been given to another airbender instead.(5+1 shorts on alternate timelines for the life of Avatar Aang.)
Relationships: Aang & Gyatso
Comments: 35
Kudos: 146





	[Roads, Diverged]

1.

The Avatar is born at another temple, in the east instead of the south.

She meets a fellow young airbender the monks called Aang when the boys from the southern temple come to meet their bison. They only cross paths once before the war begins. When the comet streaks across the sky, the nuns manage to get her out of the temple.

To save herself, the Avatar is sealed off in the cave and knows nothing of what has happened in the years between vanishing and when a young earthbender stumbles across her.

She often wonders on their adventure how differently things might have turned out if the power had been given to another airbender instead.

2.

Aang finds the eye of the storm and they manage to just barely avoid crashing into the southern seas.

After a few days, he makes it to the Southern Water Tribe. He is greeted warmly, if with confusion for being so young and travelling alone. He meets with some of their master waterbenders and tells them what the monks have told him.

“Please, teach me.” He asks, bowing. They exchange looks, but agree to help him with his training all the same. When he manages to waterbend, they finally truly believe him.

A few short months of training is not enough for him to save his people on the day of the comet, and when a horrified messenger interrupts their training, he weeps onto the shoulder of a young waterbender, in an echo of a life he never lives.

3.

Gyatso catches him before he leaves the temple.

Aang is in the middle of writing his note when his door creaks open.

“I won’t let them take you away from me.” Gyatso assures him with a tight hug. Aang buries his face in his mentor’s robes and crumples the note in his fist.

They travel together to the Eastern Air Temple, the disapproving looks of the other elders vanishing behind them.

On the day of the comet, the nuns help them escape on Appa with some of the other young novices. Gyatso guides them to a small, remote village in the Earth Kingdom where he is sure they won’t be found. A guru and the other members of the gurukul who are friends of their people hides them in his house and the village temple. Aang looks at the intricate spirals of decoration in fascination. It is a home, for a while.

He trains and manages to find teachers despite the desperate hunt for him from the Fire Nation. The war lasts less than a decade in this life. Avatar Aang leaves a legacy of ending a terrible war, helping rebuild his people, and retreating to live a quiet life.

(The war takes his friends this time. His young bending teachers fall to soldiers in the name of their mission. Of his duty to the world. He wonders if, in another life, there is something else that he loses instead. Some days, when he looks out from his room in the temple where he can see young airbenders practicing on their gliders, he wonders if the loss in another life is a fairer cost than in this one. Surely this loneliness is the worst cost he could have faced.)

4.

The story of Avatar Roku defeating Fire Lord Sozin leaves a bad taste in Aang’s mouth.

He draws his knees up to rest his chin on them and stare out across the valley from where he sits on the roof of the temple.

Avatar Roku had stopped the Fire Nation from invading the Earth Kingdom, maybe even launching an attack on the Air Temples if the stories were true, but the idea that his past life had murdered someone, someone who’d been his friend…. Aang sighs. He was sixteen now and would be expected to leave the temple soon to start his waterbending training. He was excited to see his friends in the Southern Water Tribe again, but the idea of being the Avatar is a heavy one. The sun begins to set and he slips off the roof to join everyone for evening practice and meditation.

(In this time, Avatar Aang is known for keeping peace. He restores the fractured Fire Nation from the disarray left from the death of Fire Lord Sozin, assists in maintaining the connections between the Water Tribes, and is involved with various and sundry matters throughout the Earth Kingdom.

The day of a comet passing when he was a boy is no more remarked upon except as a particularly great festival in the Fire Nation.)

5.

A young monk who has never been told a secret about himself and his mentor manage to escape.

The people of the Southern Water Tribe are startled when a singed skybison and two airbenders crash-land near one of the outer villages. The child monk nearly falls off the animal, screaming for help for his injured elder. Healers are found and they are quickly hidden when scout report sightings of Fire Nation ships making their way south. The waterbenders help heal and teach the young boy when his mentor says they cannot return to the temples.

Gyatso tries to keep the truth from him a little longer, give him time to heal, to grieve, spirits help them he is just a _boy_ … but when Aang turns fourteen he tells him the truth. It is a great and terrible fate that rests on his young student’s shoulders. He takes up proper training with the waterbenders and he is declared a master before his sixteenth birthday.

They travel in secret to the Earth Kingdom accompanied by a young waterbender and a warrior who have pledged to help the Avatar. They find Aang’s earthbender friend, who is thrilled to see them alive. They make their way through the far side of the Earth Kingdom during the next year, where there is not yet signs of the war the Fire Nation rages on the coast. The sight of the desecrated Eastern Temple is difficult to endure. It is there that they run into a Fire Nation solider and have a tense standoff for a moment before the terrified young solider says that his name is Kuzon.

Avatar Aang is barely eighteen when he stops the war.

The years afterwards are filled with rebuilding trust and healing the ugly scars left by the Fire Nation. He and Gyatso work together to preserve the airbenders way of life until his mentor’s death. (After the end of the war, there are a few hidden handfuls of airbenders that make their way to the Avatar and his mentor and they are not alone.)

Avatar Aang always holds high regard for the Southern Water Tribe and visits often. He is old now, nearing a century, and the cold finally makes his bones ache when he floats down to greet the chief and his wife. Hakoda is young and hale and a good leader to his people. He greets Aang cheerfully.

“Good news,” he says, smiling as they make their way through the village. “Kya and I are going to have another child.”

Aang smiles back at him, sharing his delight.

“How wonderful! Is your little boy excited?”

Hakoda chuckles.

“Sokka is over the moon to be a big brother. He keeps talking about all the games he’s going to teach his little brother. Kya thinks it’s probably a girl though.” They duck into the main lodge. “We’re thinking about Katara for a name if Kya is right.” Hakoda continues.

“Katara. A lovely name.” Aang says. “I wish great health and happiness to your home.”

“Thank you, Avatar Aang.” Hakoda claps his hands together. “Here’s your room, I’ll send along some dinner and leave you to rest and brace yourself for all the festivities tomorrow.”

Aang laughs.

“I enjoy the festival, Chief Hakoda. But thank you. The flight is not as quick as it seemed in my youth.”

They part ways to retire for the night.

(The next Avatar is a waterbender born in the Southern Water Tribe, the daughter of the chief, who tells her how the last Avatar had said her name was lovely.)

((In another life, they are two halve of a great romance. In this, two links in a great chain stretching back beyond memory. In every, a part of the other’s heart.))

+1.

He doesn't expect the storm to be so strong when he leaves the temple. He can hear Appa's roaring and his own terrified screaming through the waves and the rain.

Then suddenly, nothing.


End file.
